Differences between N.Korea and Iraq having weapons of mass distruction

[mattpatterson@mail.utexas.edu]

Recently,  I have been hearing a lot of people using the United States
policies towards different countries with chemical our nuclear weapons as a
justification for saying the potential war in Iroq is just about oil. There
argument follows the following logic, at least from my understanding.  Lots
of countries have chemical our nuclear weapons but the only country that
United States seems to take a really firm stance on is Iraq and this is
because iraq has oil.  While this argument seems valid on the surface, upon
a closer look the argument falls apart based on the unique situation of
Iraq compared to other countries.

When both India and Pakistan made their weapons programs known to world
they were willing to hold negotiations and allow the UN to assist in
diffusing the situation between the two countries. It seems that
negotiations between the two countries are working to diffuse the situation
without the United States having to take heavy handed actions. An example
of this can be seen in the recent actions of the two countries.  Both
countries held missile test on the same day as opposed to the past when
each would hold a missile test on separate days to scare the other country.
 In Iroq UN sponsored negotiations and have actions have failed repeatedly
in the past.  Unless a way of productively holding negotiations is figured
out a comparison can not be made between Iroq's situation and India and
Pakistanis situation.

In the case of North Korea, The administration has not really had time to
find out if negotiations can resolve and remove the threat of nuclear
weapons.  Recently the United States has enlisted the aid of other
countries to try and get positive negotiations started to resolve the
situation.  The United States has had since the Pursian gulf war to find
out that negotiations will not work with Iraq.  This makes the iraq and N.
koreas situation very different.  

It would be completely ignorant of me to say that oil is not a concern with
regards to the decision making process on Iraq.  I just feel that their oil
is not the concern.  Iraq has backed the UN and the United States into a
corner where it has few options and that is both the fault of the UN/
United States and Iraq.      

Please excuse my misspelling and most importantly this chat was not meant
to sway anyone's opinion.  It is not my goal to sway opinions just voice my
own.  I hope that by playing the devil's advocate of saying there may be a
need for regime change in Iroq that people can get a balanced view of
opinion on the subject and make up their own mind based on there own
feelings.